Independent on Sunday 1,132 by Crosophile

Apologies for the slightly tardy post – it has been a long and busy week. And so it may just have been me being preoccupied by starting a new job the following day, but this seemed like a fairly stiff challenge at first. After a second solving session a few days later, I did manage to finish things off.

There are several unfamiliar terms in there, particularly at 13ac and 21dn, and something I didn’t fully grasp at 22dn, so it’s a credit to Crosophile’s rigorous clueing that I was able to finish this without hitting the books. Good stuff.

*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, cd=cryptic definition, dd=double definition.

Across
9	RIOJA – RI + O + JA. The breed of dog is named after the town of Rottweil in Germany, so “Rottweiler’s indication of willingness” is “Ja”, German for “yes”.
10	ROYAL BLUE – BALLY* in ROUÉ.
11	ORDEALS – DE in ORALS. More continental terms, “de” being “of French”, of course.
12	A LA MODE – A LAM + ODE.
13	ARMALITE – ARM + ALIT + [sentenc]E. A brand of firearms, it seems. Not a strong subject for your pacifist blogger!
14	REACT – CATER*.
16	ONCE IN A BLUE MOON – (LUMINANCE + ONE + BOO[k])*.
20	THEME – THE + ME.
22	JUNK BOND – (N in U.K) in J. BOND.
25	VERBALS – (BRAVE + L + S)*.
26	HOLIDAY – I in (OLD + HA[t] + Y)*. A complicated one, with “time to go away” doing double duty as part of the wordplay, and the definition.
27	CONCISION – S in (COIN + COIN)*.
28	SEE TO – from SET TO (“argument”) with E, or more properly e, the base of the natural logarithm, swapped in for T.

Down
1	ARROW – R in A ROW.
2	POWDER – D[resser] in POWER.
3	CALAMARI – [mollus]C A LA MARI[niére].
4	CRESSIDA – (IS SAD + CRIES)*.
5	BYLANE – BAL[o]NEY*.
6	ALTAIR – ALT (a key on your computer keyboard) + AIR (one of the four classical elements).
7	ELDORADO – ROAD* in LODE*.
8	CEMENTING – (MINCE GENT)*.
15	SOTTO VOCE – SOT + TO + V[erdi] O[pera] C[atcalls] E[xpostulates].
17	CHEERING – CHEE[k] + RING.
18	LYNCHING – cd. My last one in, if I remember correctly.
19	EMBOLISM – (SOME LIMB)*.
21	ELAEIS – I.E. in SALE<.
22	JESUIT – J + E + SUIT. I had no idea, but apparently “Jesuitism” can be defined as “prevarication”. I’m not fully up to speed with the historical reasons for this!
23	NUDGES – G in NUDES.
24	NYLON – ONLY* + N.

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